I haven't been writing so much, but I have been reading, vociferously, feverishly, since last December. Here are the books, along with some babbles of recommendation or otherwise, and my rating ( +++++ for best). I noticed I have no + rated books-- if they're that bad, I just don't read them. No you can't tell a book by its cover, but you can tell a hell of a lot by the end of page one. I look at this list and can't believe I have read so much this past year. But then again I wonder why the dishes are never clean...

Wendell Berry Jayber Crow One of the most beautiful books I've ever read, amazing prose, complexities and simplicities and philosophies divulged in a life-long love story that made me laugh and cry. +++++

DH Lawrence The Virgin and the Gipsy Fun, romantic (duh, it's DH), and left me wanting more. +++

Fae Myenne Ng Bone Some incredible insight, some incredibly mediocre passages. A nice combination of old tradition meets new culture ++

Arthur Golden Memoirs of a Geisha Reminded me of Alexandre Dumas's Three Musketeers; intrigue, romance, unrequited love-- an interesting epic, and I'm impressed by the author. ++++

CS Lewis That Hideous Strength Some scary science fiction, a little too close to reality. Part of the Perelandra trilogy +++

John Steinbeck The Pearl Touching story about human hearts and poverty and jealousy, one of my all-time favorite authors. +++

N. Scott Momaday House Made of Dawn Native American writer extraordinaire, a master of words, portraying sweeping Southwest vistas, wild places and people, and life and hard times. +++++

Gloria Naylor Bailey's Cafe More like character sketches than a novel, but complex issues interwoven, & nice finish. +++

Breena Clarke River Cross My Heart Started out great, lost momentum halfway through, but excellent for 1960s cultural relevance. A difficult story about the aftermath of a drowning, narrated by a young black girl coping with loss, racism, & segregation in the South. +++

George Orwell 1984 Straightforward story-telling, both historic and prophetic, read it if you haven't. ++++

F. Scott Fitzgerald Great Gatsby Poor boy made it rich, or did he? Undisputable classic, prose that leaves me breathless, and a story fill of intrigue, romance, murder. ++++

Barbara Kingsolver Bean Trees Sweet tale about poor and brave souls in the Southwest, worth reading but not my favorite of her books. +++

Jack London The Cruise of the Snark Adventure on the high seas, Jack built a sailing ship & sailed if from SF to the South Pacific, and shares his views on navigation, Herman Melville, and the ocean, plus interaction & observation about the natives on each island. Insightful, curious, solidly written. His wife Charmian was such a badass. +++

Mackinley Kantor Long Remember One of the sexiest books I've read, a narrative of love & death & politics, and an historical revisit of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863-- puts faces on infidelity & war I'll long remember. This one gets +++++

Herman Melville Typee Both Cruise of the Snark and Long Remember mentioned Typee within the text, so I decided I must read it too. This is Melville's (possibly) autobiographical recount of deserting a whaling ship on a little South Pacific island (which he did), and living among the cannibalistic natives, and then his daring escape from the island named Typee. ++++

Paul McAuley The Secret of Life Cheese! Interesting cheese, and scienterrific-fiction complete with words & references to biological stuff I had to look up, but yeah, basically, mind-candy. ++

Anatole France HoneyBee Short story, considered by many to be influential on Tolkein's Ring Trilogy. Worth reading if you encounter it. +++

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Short Stories compilation volume #17 from 1955. More mind-candy; I was on a science fiction & fantasy kick. It happens. Good stories by Poul Anderson, Robert Silverberg, etc. & fun fast reading. No rating.

Erik Larson The Devil in the White City I didn't want this one to end, it was so much fun to read. Murder-mystery intrigue set in the historical overview of the 1893 World Fair in Chicago, complete with scandalous bellydancing, unbelievable architecture, and the first Ferris wheel. +++++

Herman Melville Billy Budd poignant fodder for contemplation & rhetorical questions, lots of thick juicy prose, a book to sink your teeth into. ++++

Kurt Vonnegut Sirens of Titan weirdness like real life, as unreal as the Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut's most curious Martian fiction story, complete with a sympathetic ass of an anti-hero. +++

K. Vonnegut Slapstick Hi ho. The future of the world. ++

Phillip K Dick Minority Report & Other Stories good sci-fi collection, some good ideas & plot twists, not my favorite writer. ++

K.Vonnegut Welcome to the Monkey House Short stories, some of which are some of the best-told stories anywhere. +++

K.V. Cat's Cradle When I was a little girl my Mom would put the soles of her feet to mine & we'd sit there, feet together, delighted with "Bokonon." I think Ice Nine must exist somewhere. Curious? The end of the world. ++++

Larry McMurty The Last Picture Show racy novel about a high school kid in 1950s Texas, including drinking, cow-fucking, death, and an affair with the coach's wife. No I didn't give it all away; it was very interesting from a distance. +++

James McBride The Color of Water I couldn't finish this one, it made Angela's Ashes look like a comedy. Not very writerly, either, and I can be such a snob. I got 75% through & decided it was too much effort. But I'll give it ++

Barbara Kingsolver Prodigal Summer A veritable web of humans with different agendas told from a completely sympathetic point of view. Left me thinking that none of us knows so much as we speculate, and our deficiency may be our pride. Lovely book. +++++

Robert Hough The Final Confession of Mabel Stark A bit too bestial for me, and probably not 100% historically accurate, told as a stark, honest narrative. But it stirred happiness and sadness about the famous tiger-tamer's tragic life in the early 1900s. +++

Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse Five Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in Time. Just as Vonnegut had a difficult time putting into words his survival of Dresden & the war, so too I have difficulty writing any synopsis of this book. ++++

Karin Van Nieukerk A Trade Like Any Other: Female Singers & Dancers In Egypt Still reading this one, for my own enlightenment about Middle Eastern dance. So much more to learn! No rating

B. Traven The Bridge in the Jungle A simple tragic event boiled down to the essence of human emotions. Thoughtful, sad, worth the read. ++++

Myla Goldberg Bee Season Interesting book with a power-punch ending, avoids the humdrum academia-style navel-gazing by making the characters genuine people with real concerns. +++

Kurt Vonnegut Bluebeard I'm running out of Vonnegut books to read. This one was excellent, the bittersweet history of a one-eyed war-surviving artist's life.. I'll read this one again. +++++


What to read next? I don't know... feel like I need to do some digesting...